New Year's Eve! (Show 'em how we party in Spain)

Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad
Prospero año y felicidad

Happy Hanukkah too. Not surprisingly given its embarrassing history, Spain does not have an official Hanukkah song, so we'll go with this....

Feliz Hanukkah
Feliz Hanukkah
Prospero año y felicidadukkah

مرري سهرستمس إن أربس تو! (تهس إس فر يأ أمر)

سعيد عيد الميلا Amir

AND....(newly added to the fragments-of-foreign-languages bank)

καλά Χριστούγεννα!

Okay, well anyway, I just felt like I should put something up for the festivities. Please feel free to send money by check or PayPal in appreciation of our friendship (assuming we are friends) or (if we're not) out of the goodness of your heart, because you can take my word for it, respected person with money; it is going to a good cause. Amen.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Aaron

Navidad

I'm going to Greece for Christmas!!! WOOOOOOOOO!

Finally managed to get my act together and buckle down, so everything's set. I'll be there on some small island for 7 days, come back to Seville so I can spend the New Year with friends (2 of whom happen to be my new "bosses") at their country house. Should be good times. And then, with luck, we'll be going to Amsterdam for a few days to see what the city has to offer.

Belatedly Updated(ly)

New big things. Found a job, found a team, started working, started playing, girl is leaving (she's not staying) but life is good and goes on, the horse continues forward, galloping rapidly and I'm here, by the river, having the time of my life (and protecting my liver--don't worry parents).

I arrived 15 minutes late to my only class today (Anthropology of Development) on account of the damned #5 bus only to find an empty classroom. Then a straggler (one of the older women--late 50s, I would guess) told me that our professor decided that we should go to the bar instead of having class. Naturally, I was disgusted and offended by this suggestion. So I went to the bar, where I found the rest of the 20 of us, and stood outside drinking beer and talking about important things (none of which were actually important), enjoyed the wonderful weather (20 degrees celsius here during the day, in December!) and then came home for lunch.

First semester's been a blast, and though it doesn't really end until the end of January, most of the kids from my program (all but 5 of us) are leaving before Christmas--about a week. I'll especially miss one. Her leaving is not exactly a small thing. Like I said, life goes on. That's what I'm telling myself, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job believing it. For whatever reason, it seems somehow easier to see the upside of things here. Maybe it's a survival instinct--not much in the way of serious emotional support available--but whatever the case, I'm not complaining. Life is good, and hopefully long, and there are ever more and more adventures making themselves known. Speaking of which, I should get myself out of the house. Chelsea's birthday dinner tonight @ a great vegan restaurant in the Alemeda--should be good times and good wine. Always good company.

Thanksgiving

On this hallowed day
which Providence has given us,
I just want to take a moment to
thank all of the noble savages out there for your
most noble sacrifice.
Let me buy you a drink, Red
(as a sign of gratitude).

What's that? You've already got one?
Your own bottle of Mohawk?
Oh my goodness!
In that case, I'll take this one
for the both of us.

I've heard it said that
You can take the savage out of the plains
and the plains from the savage,
but you can't take the savage out of the savage.


So on this wonderful day
Drink up and give thanks
to our most noble savages
and their most generous,
Red Delicious
sacrifice.
Amen.


Hey! Save me a piece of that apple pie, dammit!
--

Brandy

Sometimes I wonder sometimes I wonder,
endangering my well-being in doing so.
Why we starve amid surplus
and kill killers
and hang leaders
Ignore the hungry, so inconvenient.
Fuck the poor
And shit on the righteous,
Self-righteous stump-speeches
And political polling
Television ratings
Tax cuts
Must change the producers
into consumers.
This is progress.
Fuck the consumers, we’re over-consuming.
Give birth
Consume to sustain
[develop]
'Need to sustain consumption rates,
Rates, rates, rates,
And this rape goes unpunished
while grams put fathers in jail
and we say justice has failed,
but they strive for jail;
'better than the neighborhood hustle.
[Have you seen Philly lately?]

We get hustled more every day
while snoring in our creaking beds, raining,
Dreaming dreams of sex and death, and exams unprepared for.
The Dream is a nightmare and I’m thrashing violent in my sheets
But I can’t wake up.

Somebody please
call Oprah
and ask her what to do.

Worth a Look: Radiohead - Creep Acoustic with flash animation

I feel like a total tool posting this on my blog (note: this is not an adolescent cry for help), but I'm a fan of this song, and the animation that goes with it does an excellent job of capturing the sentiment. Handelsman says: 2 thumbs up. Worth a watch.

Here's the youtube link (or you can look at the bottom of the page--it's probably already there):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JsHKoJM8uv8

A sudden heaviness from who knows where.

I retreat into myself for warmth and companionship

but come up empty-handed

and cold

[Is all that we see or seem...]




This morning I arrived at my door at 6 a.m.
alone again
and layed in bed
until 9 a.m.
and wondered, in between foreign dreams,
How?
A rhetorical question.

Si tu te vas

Dicen que vengo de lejos,
cantando Pasa la vida.
Desde la Isla a Triana,
desde Triana a Sevilla.

Eucalipto de Chapina,
callejones de Triana,
plaza, la de Doña Elvira,
plazuela, la de Santa Ana.

Si tú te vas,
si tú te vas,
yo me quedo en Sevilla
hasta el final.

Si tú te vas,
si tú te vas,
yo me quedo en Sevilla
hasta el final.

Apuesto por Sevilla por el mundo,
no me cambio de barrio por un beso,
canto para saber que estoy cantando,
vivo para saber que estoy viviendo.

Vente p'acá y déjate de frío,
vente p'acá y déjate de frío,
hay ramas por todos los rincones,
me casaré, te casarás conmigo.
Ay Sevilla,
Sevilla de vacaciones.

Si tú te vas,
si tú te vas,
yo me quedo en Sevilla
hasta el final.

(R. Amador)

Pubic Hair

When you go to the only bathroom in the house, only to be greeted on a regular basis by someone else's pubic hairs and an overwhelming smell of methane, you know you live with a grunting slob named Oscar.

Oranges

I didn't really even want the orange that much, as I was already full. But I ate it anyway--because Sevillian oranges are great--until I realized that there were maggots helping me. !Que ASCO!

Montar Caballos

Despues de almorzar, tres de nosotras vamos a viajar al campo, la periféria de Sevilla para montar caballos. Deber ser guapísma si todo vaya bien. I hope we don't end up trotting around some dingy, dusty corral. 'Hoping for rivers, creeks, galloping, etc...Vamos a ver.

Otra cosa: el hijo de mi señora, Oscar, es de super-mal humor. I asked my señora where I could catch the bus into the country, she wasn't sure, so she asked Oscar. He snapped at her, as he invariably does, for unknown reasons (though I have a hunch this may have something to do with his being an antisocial douchebag. This may also have something to do with his being named "Oscar.") And now they're exchanging loud, hot words, which I'm sure my esteemed readers can see (notes: that direct adress to the reader I did right there--straight from the preface of/introduction to Don Quixote. Call me Cervantes) puts me in a very comfortable situation. Right.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now lunch is over and I'm headed out to the bus station and then to the campo to hang out with Mr. Ed(uardo) and Henry the Horse (who dances the waltz). I haven't ridden a horse since I was a little kid (and friends, I'm SO past that stage now), so this should be pretty exciting.

I saw this thing on my friend Sarah's computer today and asked her to send it to me. I hope nobody is feeling the need for this drug, but in the event that you do, here it is. Not recommended for parents of young children:

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

--E.A. Poe

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is pretty great. I'm becoming smitten. If you haven't yet, 'should listen to some of his tunes. I'm lookin' for a way to link to songs in the blog, and still working on that photo site (or rather, I'm going to start working again...I just bought a new adapter today for my mac. It's European.)

Today I at breakfast at the Center for los mayores (the old people) of Triana. I've found my new hangout! (And yes, I asked if non-old-people are welcome, and they so totally are.) Beer: 45 cents, Wine, more or less the same. Breakfast: Café con leche y tostada entera con aceite, 1.35 euro. Score.

Part of "Subterranean Homesick Blues," by Bob Dylan

You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows


...

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles

Starting your second-ever conversation with the cute bartendergirl you just ran into at her bar with an icebreaker like: "So when do you get off work?" is not as good idea as it might seem...to some, he learned.

Pink Floyd is Timeless!

Mosquitos

Mosquitos suck, but Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer is the man. Things balance out.

Yesterday was one of the most pleasurable days I´ve had in Spain on account of numerous small things (like finally understanding what the hell my Lit de España II prof is saying and then getting really excited about learning and reading. That was good. Sidenote: He, my professor, looks remarkably like Dustin Hoffman and sounds like he began smoking prior to leaving the womb).

Life is good.

Miercoles, 17 de octubre 2007

Within the first couple of weeks of arriving in Sevilla, I became friends with the owners (two brothers, Sergio y Gerardo) of a café bar just down the street from my piso en Triana (Viva la Republica independiente!). The story of how this all came about is actually somewhat amusing in itself, but that´s for another time (I´m working toward a point right now, stay with me). So anyway, it just so happens that these guys are really cool and pretty much my best friends here. I see them a few times a week, have been to their ridiculously nice homes (they´re loaded--this could also end up being a very interesting story...I have my theories on how they got there) and I´ve met a ton of people through them as well. So that´s great. But what´s even better (or, rather, another cool thing) is that Sergio plays guitar, is learning flamenco, and really digs Pink Floyd (the best band in the world, duh). So it was one of those days many weeks back that I told him I was itching to find a second-hand guitar etc...and he said he´d look for one for me. Well, I finally asked him if he´d had any luck (I´m getting pretty antsy not having a guitar and missing out on flamenco lessons [I´ve decided to learn at least the basics of flamenco before I go....it´s an incredible artform...youtube it...I don´t have any artists in mind at the moment, but I´ll look in my journal and find some recommendations]).¨"No" is the short answer (i.e. he didn´t find anything). But the follow up was much better. He is going to give me his classical/flamenco guitar to practice on, and I´m picking it up today after I finish classes (and get back from a little "reunion" in the park) ;)

Other things....

I´ve finally got my class schedule more or less down and in the process learned never to rely on the anthro department advisors for anything like advice pertaining to course selection or the fulfillment of concentration requirements (4 weeks and a $5 phone call later --out of my pocket, fuckers-- I get my two line response--affirmative, you can in fact take this class. Enjoy catching up!) The good news though is that it looks like I might actually be able to well, graduate (eventually).

Classes are cool, the people are HOT, the weather´s becoming a bit more humane, the days are beginning to pass more quickly, buildings and their narrow winding streets have lost that honeymoon novelty but retain their beauty. The fish swim in the river and the people sit by the river and catch them. Sometimes they drink beer. Sometimes I drink beer, and sit by the river. But I haven´t fished yet.

Cadiz

Yesderday I went to Cadiz with the Michigan-Cornell-Penn group. Cadiz is beautiful and, after seeing the first/most famous Camera Oscura, I've decided that I'm going to have to build one at some point (i.e. whenever I end up settling somewhere long enough to do so). I also learned that it is not a good idea to climb brittle-looking and brittle-feeling rock. It turns out that these characteristcs may actually indicate that the seen/felt rock is in fact brittle, and therefore not an ideal place for hanging one's person. Fortunately, my 12-15 foot fall found me on my feet 12-15 feet lower on a large, flat slab of concrete (next to two large not-so-flat pieces of concrete), completely intact but for a few ripped fingertips and a scraped elbow. Thank God I had my climbing shoes on, otherwise my feet probably wouldn't be working too well. Then again, had I not had my climbing shoes, I probably wouldn't have been climbing a big wall without ground under it...Mostly I felt bad for the few of my friends who happened to see me fall, as I'm sure it was much more frightening for them. But onto more important things. I swam in the ocean and saw semi naked people running on warm sand. Sadly, I think it's the overweight wrinkly one who's managed to fight hardest for a place in my memory. Shame!

I'm working on getting a photo website going, so check back soon for updates. It's gonna be hot. Get ready...

Also, there's a bullfight tomorrow and a group of kids are going to it. I know it's a cultural thing, but I have pretty seriously mixed feelings about the whole thing (i.e. I think it's disgusting and cruel), so I'm not really sure what to do. Any thoughts/opinions on whether it'll be worth it?

P.S. I'm probably going to kill my roommate in his sleep within the next week or so, so if the readers would kindly begin developing reliable, or at least creative, interesting-to-read alibis, that would be really great. Thanks.

More to come within the week (probably).